Satistics/ White colar crime Flashcards
(27 cards)
What are Victim Surveys
Ask people whether they’ve been a victim Annual Crime Survey for England and Wales.
-Give a clearer idea of the extent of crime, who is likely to be a victim and people’s fears about crime.
-They also highlight the risk of repeat victimisation of victims. Discover trends
-Measure if the police are performing efficiently
-Provide the public and media with information
-Provide sociologists with information
By combining Police Recorded Crime and the CSEW you get the best overall picture of crime within England and Wales
What are Police recorded statistics
Published by the Home Office every 6 months
Come from records kept by the police
Collected historically (1857)
Give an accurate view of the way in which offenders are processed (arrests, trials, punishments)
Crime Survey for England and Wales face to face/ telephone
-Face to face victimisation survey/ telephone survey during 2021
-35,000 adults and 3,000 10 to 15year olds interviewed each year
-Provides an important estimate of the levels and trends in crime experienced by the general population
-Violence (though murder cannot be included), robbery, theft (personal, burglary, vehicle, bicycle, other household) and criminal damage.
There is no single measure of crime and deviance in the UK
Pros of crime surveys
-It’s consistent and robust done annual
-Better than police recorded figures. survey asks about crimes that are not reported or recorded by the police
-Unaffected by changes in police recording practices or levels of public reporting to the police
-Provides key information on the nature of crime, such as a demographic profile of victims, location and time of day of the incident.
Weaknesses of crime surveys
-The survey doesn’t cover ‘victimless’ crime, such as possession of drugs or motoring offences.
-Relies on people’s memory recollections may be incorrect or biased.
-Under-reporting of personal attack, domestic violence and sexual crimes
-The media sensitising issues can sometimes encourage people to report, so you get over reporting
Sociologist approach crime statistics with
-Sociologists approach crime statistics with caution
-Reliability is inconsistencies in the way crimes are classified (several crimes could be rolled into one more
serious offence)
-They question their validity in providing a true and complete picture of crime
-Many offences are not discovered
-Many are not reported
-Many of those reported are not recorded
-Maguire (2002) – only 3% of all crime in England and Wales ends with a conviction
Why don’t people report crime?
-It was too trivial, involved no loss, or the police would not have been interested or could not do anything.
-It was a private matter which they dealt with themselves.
-It was inconvenient to report.
Why might these disparities exist between victim
surveys and police recorded crime?
Dark Figure of crime. Underreporting: Victims may not report crimes due to fear, distrust, or believing it’s minor. Police Practices: Not all reported crimes are recorded due to discretion or errors.
Definition Differences: Surveys may include incidents not legally classified as crimes.
Fear of Self-Incrimination: Victims in illegal activities avoid police but share in surveys. Sensitive crimes (e.g., domestic abuse) are underreported to police.
Crime Survey for England and Wales 7.1 million crimes recorded in England and Wales (2014). Police recorded crime 3.7 million offences.
What happens to information once it is
passed onto the police?
Assume that when a crime has been reported to the
police, this would be recorded and would therefore form part of official statistics. Not the case and each year approximately 57% of crimes fail to appear in official data. This can be becuase it seen to be too trivial/ waste of time, Already been resolved victim doesn’t want to proceed, Complainant unreliable drunk/drugs use.
What are Self-Report Studies
Ask people to honestly confess to crimes they have committed over a period of time. Help us to of get a better picture of some crimes like drug-use.
Anne Campbell gave a self-report study to young females and found they had almost as high a criminal behaviour rate as young males.
However, Steven Box argued that if petty crime was removed from this data then the male-female ratio was closer to the official one: 5:1.
Weaknesses of Self-Report Studies
Steven Box (1971) argues self-report studies suffer from issues of validity are they true to life. Respondents can
forget, play-down or exaggerate the extent of criminal activity they have been involved in.
Representativeness most self-report studies are on young people, they rarely include professional or managerial adults.
Functionalist View on Statistics
Share the view of positivists, tend to accept crime statistics uncritically. Develop subcultural theory like crime is a young, WC, male phenomenon.
Crime rates reflect how well societal norms and values are maintained. Statistics help identify how crime contributes to social change or reinforces boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Data reveals patterns help understand which groups or areas face greater strain or lack of integration. Statistics assess the effectiveness of institutions like education in promoting social cohesion.
Marxist View on Statistics
Recognise the systematic favour the powerful in the application of the law. As a general rule, the higher people are in the social system the less likely they are to be arrested, charged, prosecuted and found guilty.
Marxists stress the significant ‘dark-side’ of white-collar and corporate crime that is largely invisible and absent from crime statistics.
Interactionist/Labelling Theory View of Statistics
Sees crime statistics as largely useless and a distortion of reality. Argue statistics are a social construction and tell us nothing about the real level of crime. Interactionists emphasize that statistics do not measure “real” crime but rather reflect societal reactions and the labeling process.
Statistics may reinforce stereotypes by labeling certain groups as “criminal,” perpetuating further discrimination and over-policing.
Right Realist View on Statistics
Accepting that official statistics have some value and should not be completely rejected. They accept the statistical view that typical offenders are young, male, WC and disproportionately black. Using victim studies, they highlight how people (especially the poor and
vulnerable) have real fears of crime.
View crime statistics as an objective measure of actual crime levels. Argue these statistics reflect the most serious and socially harmful crimes. Help to find patterns to inform things like target hardening and increased surveillance. They advocate using data to focus on practical solutions, such as zero-tolerance policing.
Feminist View on Statistics
Crime statistic underplay the extent of females as
victims: personal attack; domestic violence. Until recently the police viewed attacks in the home as “domestics” and were reluctant to get involved. Victim-blaming and societal stigma discourage reporting.
Criminal statistics often prioritize crimes where men are both offenders and victims like violent street crimes.
Evaluation theories to explain crime so far
Research like left & right realism, Marxism, Subcultural theories, Labelling thories looks at the crimes of the powerless focusing on WC not MC crime. The media helps to reinforce crime as a WC problem.
Why doesn’t everybody in the same circumstances commit crime? Not everyone from the poorest sections of the WC commit crime. Widespread evidence of WC crime being exaggerated. Crime is committed in other social classes goes undetected, unrecorded or dealt with outside of the criminal law.
Sultherland (1949)
-One of the first sociologists to address the idea that crime and deviant isn’t just confined to the WC
-He introduced the idea of white collar crime and corporate crime to describe the offences of the more affluent
Ditton (1977) & Mars (1982)
found that many employers (in a wide range of occupations), thought that it was a ‘perk’ of the job & legitimate to steal from their workplaces.
Corporate crime/ organisational crime
Occupational crime
Crimes committed by corporations or large companies, or by individuals acting on behalf of a company, which benefit the organization. Tax Evasion: the illegal practice of not paying taxes, by not reporting income or by not paying taxes owed.
Criminal acts committed by individuals in there occupation for personal gain, rather than to benefit their employer or organization. An employee embezzling money from a company account for personal use.
Dufficulties of Analysis Official Statistics & White Collar(Occupational Crime)
-Difficult to Detect - ‘Invisible Crime’.
- ‘Victimless’ Crime.
-Lack of awareness – the R/C control the media
-It’s not a police priority
Functionalist strain theory explanation of coorpate crime
Hard to see why MC people need to commit crime to achieve blocked social goals, but they may still have the sense of relative debt deprivation lack things they see others having want more than what they can achieve by the legitimate approved. Means have to come up with innovative. Turned to crime fueled by greed and power. Want more businesses may bypass laws and regulations to maintain profit and difficult circumstances of competitive market. Interactionist control theory.
Nelken link with Control theory
People fall into financial difficulties when trying to maintain their lifestyle strongly tied to social expectation and obligations to those in the same social group, so use innovative and legitimate means to reassure their financial difficulties and maintain same lifestyle to be accepted by those around them.
Differential association- Sutherlands people who associate with other who participate in illegal activity more likely to comite crime
Marxist explanations of coorpate crime
People commit corporate crime because capitalism is criminogenic. They do this to maintain their profits. Sometimes this is done illegally, for example by selling dangerous. goods or by misleading advertisement
